Nickelodeon Buys TMNT, Movie and TV Show Due In 2012

Nickelodeon, a subsidiary of Viacom Inc., has officially acquired the rights to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which will lead into a movie and TV show based on the series, both due in 2012. The price? Only $60 million, next to nothing compared to the $4 billion Disney spent on the overtaking of Marvel earlier this year. And while the two may seem unrelated, this will give Viacom a great superhero license to compete with Disney’s host of news heroes.

The show is, unsurprisingly, set to be computer generated, but the movie (by Paramount, another subsidiary of Viacom) has not yet been confirmed to be animated or live action, though evidence points to the former. However, while an animated movie seems like an obvious choice at this point, the live action films from the 90s were received much more positively by fans and critics alike than the recent, animated TMNT (2007).

While I would personally love to see a new live action Turtles movie, I’m not getting my hopes up – animated movies are becoming more popular each day, and with an animated TV series coming to Nickelodeon soon, they would almost certainly like to have an animated movie to go with it.